How often do you save something to your browser bookmarks to read later and then promptly forget about it, leaving bookmarks languishing in an unused folder on your computer? Or perhaps you’re a bookmark hoarder, constantly bookmarking articles and sites but failing to organize them, making it impossible to find what you’re looking for at a later date.
This is something I’m guilty of – but a new crop of AI-powered apps could change all that. Apps such as Otio and Fabric make it easier to save links and files for later, so you can read, share, and create projects with them. They can also help you to be more organized by categorizing and cataloging your content – all without you lifting a finger.
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1. Otio
Otio was my favorite app to use by far, and there are a number of reasons for that. Firstly, signing up to use the tool is a breeze – you don’t need a credit card to snag a free account.
After signing up, you’re straight into the Otio interface, which felt a bit abrupt as there are no tutorials here. However, the interface feels intuitive and is easy to navigate, with buttons for uploading a file, pasting a link, getting a detailed summary, or chatting with your content.
After pasting in a few links, I found them in the library, along with options to filter them by category or tag. I found the summarization feature especially handy for getting through my saved content and clearing out links I’d bookmarked ages ago.
I didn’t mind the lack of a mobile or desktop app, but there is a Chrome extension to make saving content easy.
You don’t get a lot for free
You can spend 5 credits a day on Otio’s free tier; each of those goes towards actions like saving a link, generating a summary, and asking a question about your content. You can get 20 credits a day for $7.50/month on an annual plan, or unlimited credits and GPT-4 under the hood for $15/month. If you bookmark a lot of links and want to get through them, this might be well worth it.
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2. Fabric
First up, I loved that Fabric offers an intro to what you can do with the app before dropping you into the interface. Unlike Otio, Fabric does have a generous free plan that you can use if you don’t want to subscribe to the paid plans.
Fabric also offers a Chrome extension, desktop app, and mobile app. I downloaded the Android app, which is in Early Access, and it offered a similar experience to the desktop version.
Not as intuitive as Otio
My first impression of Fabric was less than positive, though. It felt less intuitive than Otio, and hovering over the buttons didn’t tell me what they were for – pasting links, uploading files, or taking notes, as it turned out – so I initially felt quite confused. When you paste a link, Fabric lets you add a note which I imagine could be handy if you’re later wondering why on earth you saved something!
Summaries were unimpressive
I struggled a bit working out how to generate an AI summary of my uploaded content and eventually figured out that you click the smiley face at the bottom right of the interface. This opens Fabric Assistant, and you can ask the AI assistant to help you with a variety of tasks, including generating a summary.
One thing that’s quite annoying is that you’ll need to know the name of the item you want to be summarized. If, for example, you have fifteen Wired articles saved, you’ll need to click into them to see what the title is before you can ask the Assistant to summarize that article for you.
I wasn’t impressed by Fabric’s summaries at all. They were mostly a sentence about the article, followed by a note saying no snippets were available, and a link to the original content. This wouldn’t be useful for research or a quick overview of content on the go. Which brings me to my next gripe: credits. You only get five free credits for the Assistant with the free trial, and generating a summary, or asking the Assistant to do anything, uses one credit.
Plans to suit everyone
Fabric has a generous free trial that lets you add ten links, and a free lifetime plan that’s ideal if you’ll only use it occasionally. Otherwise, there are three paid plans to choose from starting at around $5 a month and going up to $40 per month. It’s worth noting that you don’t get Fabric’s AI assistant with the free or $5/month plan, though, so if you want summaries, you’ll need to pay for the Pro or Max plans — and you might be better off with Otio’s Unlimited plan with GPT-4 access.
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Are These AI Tools Worth the Price?
If you’re looking for apps that can help you collate and organize your bookmarks, AI-powered tools have a lot to offer. However, if you’re mostly going to be using them to generate summaries, you might be better off sticking with ChatGPT 3.5, which is free, or even upgrading to GPT-4 for $20/month, as you’ll get access to all of Chat GPT’s powerful features.
You could also consider Microsoft Copilot, which starts at $0 and integrates with Windows, as well as Microsoft apps such as Teams to generate meeting summaries. Whether these tools are worth the price depends on your use case. For me, they seem a bit expensive for the functionality they currently offer.
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Other AI-powered Bookmark Tools
Otio and Fabric aren’t the only two options out there for bookmarking your life. Other tools like Kome, Markwise, Zenfetch, and Ditto are all worth checking out too. Here’s a bit more info about each, in case you want to give them a try.
Kome
Kome does a lot of the same things as Otio and Fabric, but it’s a browser extension that’s compatible with most popular browsers. Where it shines is in its excellent, concise summaries — it can even summarize YouTube videos — but it also adds the useful ability to use your bookmarks to generate content, from tweets to emails, making it ideal for professionals and students.
There’s a free plan with five summary credits or a paid version from $5.99 a month, so it’s reasonably priced, too.
Markwise
Another app with many of the same features as those we’ve already mentioned, Markwise is great for categorizing all your saved content, creating summaries, and chatting with your data. Smart search makes finding anything a breeze, and it syncs across all your devices.
There are a number of features coming soon, too, from weekly digest emails to collaboration tools and browser extensions. The free plan offers basic bookmarking capabilities; access to all features will cost you $9.90/month.
Zenfetch
With Zenfetch, you can save anything from links to YouTube videos to PDFs by clicking the button in your browser. AI-powered chat makes it easy to find content even if you can’t remember its name or topic, and because Zenfetch integrates with your browser, you can use it anywhere.
You’ll get daily email summaries of your content, too, so you’ll never forget to catch up on anything. You can sign up for the 14-day free trial to see if it’s the right tool for you – no card required – and the Premium plan starts from around $15 per month.
All screenshots taken by Paula Beaton.
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Paula Beaton
Paula Beaton is a freelance tech writer and self-confessed nerd obsessed with all things gaming and podcasts. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing the latest story-driven titles, and, when she’s feeling brave enough, listening to horror and true crime podcasts or playing survival horror games. Her favorite game is The Last of Us.
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